SGP considers gender equality and empowerment to be essential elements for achieving sustainable development and global environmental benefits. In this sense, SGP has developed a global gender mainstreaming policy, which lays out the key features of this approach. At the national level, gender is an integral component of the CPS, and SGP country programme teams support all NGO and CBO partners to consider gender in designing and implementing projects.
Key Features of Gender Mainstreaming in SGP
- Gender is one of the main criteria considered for the approval of grants.
- Promotion of gender mainstreaming at the earliest stages of the project cycle. Men and women participate in the initial stages of project conception, approval and implementation.
- Needs assessment is done at the project development phase and is used to define the roles of women and men early in the project. This helps minimize conflict among different stakeholders during and after the project cycle with respect to roles in project activities and sharing of project benefits.
- Document the contribution of women to project activities in key areas where women already figure prominently (e.g., biodiversity management, in situ conservation of agrobiodiversity, conservation of medicinal plants, etc.). This contributes significantly to enhanced integration of gender considerations in current and future projects.
- SGP National Steering Committees employ checklists and criteria to assess and screen projects for how they mainstream gender. Moreover, some SGP countries have developed gender guidelines to mainstream gender into the project cycle.
- SGP's demand-driven approach at the local level increases the likelihood of receiving proposals from women and marginalized groups.
- SGP holds "proposal writing workshops" and accepts project proposals in local languages and even in oral formats through participatory video proposals. Thus encouraging maximum participation by women, indigenous peoples and youth.
- SGP encourages women stand-alone projects in line with the GEF focal areas.
- Grantees are encouraged to participate in the global peer-learning network.
- Field evaluation, including monitoring and evaluation and participatory appraisals, incorporates gender-based indicators to track the status of gender mainstreaming in projects.
- Gender-focused training and sensitization workshops are provided for National Coordinators at the regional level and for grantees at the national level.
- National Steering Committees—a voluntary body that makes all decisions on grant making— are required to include a gender specialist.
- National Coordinators performance is explicitly assessed with respect to results achieved in promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment.
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